Cock went to a Spring near by—and when he saw in it how his head was swollen and he found that it was growing harder, he again began to lament.
“What matters?” murmured the Beloved of the Waters.
Then he told them the tale also.
“Listen!” said the Beings of Water. “Long have men neglected their duties, and the Beloved of the Clouds need payment of due no less than ourselves, the Trees, the Food-maker, the Dog, and the Old Woman. Behold! no plumes are set about our border! Now, therefore, pay to them of thy feathers—four floating plumes from under thy wings—and set them close over us, that, seen in our depths from the sky, they will lure the Beloved of the Clouds with their rain-laden breaths. Thus will our stream-way be replenished and the Trees watered, and their Winds in the Trees will drop thee dead branches wherewith thou mayest make payment and all will be well.”
Forthwith the Tâkâkâ plucked four of his best plumes and set them, one on the northern, one on the western, one on the southern, and one on the eastern border of the Pool. Then the Winds of the Four Quarters began to breathe upon the four plumes, and with those Breaths of the Beloved came Clouds, and from the Clouds fell Rain, and the Trees threw down dry branches, and the Wind placed among them Red-top Grass, which is light and therefore lightens the load it is among. And when the Cock returned and gathered a little bundle of fagots, lo! the Red-top made it so light that he easily carried it to the Food-maker, who gave him bread, for which the Dog gave him four bristles, and these he took to the old Grandmother.
“Ha!” exclaimed she. “Now, child, I will cure thee, but thou hast been so long that thy head will always be welted and covered with proud-flesh, even though healed. Still, it must ever be so. Doing right keeps right; doing wrong makes wrong, which, to make right, one must even pay as the sick pay those who cure them. Go now, and bide whither I bid thee.”
When, after a time, the Cock became well, lo! there were great, flabby, blood-red welts on his head and blue marks on his temples where they were bruised so sore. Now, listen:
It is for this reason that ever since that time the medicine masters of that people never give cure without pay; never, for there is no virtue in medicine of no value. Ever since then cocks have had no bristles on their breasts—only little humps where they ought to be;—and they always have blood-red crests of meat on their heads. And even when a hen lays an egg and a tâkâkâ cock sees it, he begins to tâ‑kâ‑kâ‑â as the ancient of them all did when he saw the brown nut. And sometimes they even pick at and eat these seeds of their own children, especially when they are cracked.
As for mice, we know how they went into the meal-bags in olden times and came out something else, and, getting smoked, became tsothliko-ahâi, with long, bare tails. But that was before the Cock cut the tail of the tsothliko Mouse off. Ever since he cried in agony: “Weh tsu yii weh tsu!” like a child with a burnt finger, his children have been called Wehtsutsukwe, and wander wild in the fields; hence field-mice to this day have short tails, brown-stained and hairy; and their chops are all pink, and when you look them in the face they seem always to be crying.
Thus shortens my story.
The Giant Cloud-Swallower
A Tale of Canyon de Chelly
Translator’s Introduction
Deep down in canyons of the Southwest, especially where they are joined by other canyons, the traveller may see standing forth from or hugging the angles of the cliffs, great towering needles of stone—weird, rugged, fantastic, oftentimes single, as often—like gigantic wind-stripped trees with lesser trees standing beside them—double or treble. Seen suddenly at a turn in the canyon these giant stones startle the gazer with their monstrous and human proportions, like giants, indeed, at bay against the sheer rock walls, protecting their young, who appear anon to crouch at the knees of their fathers or cling to their sides.
Few white men behold these statuesque stones in the moonlight, or in the gray light and white mists of the morning. At midday they seem dead or asleep while standing; but when the moon is shining above them and the wanderer below looks up to them, lo! the moon stands still and these mighty crags start forth, advancing noiselessly. His back is frozen, and even in the yielding sand his feet are held fast by terror—a delicious, ghostly terror, withal! Still he gazes fascinated, and as the shadow of the moonlight falls toward him over the topmost crest, lo, again! its crown is illumined and circled as if by a halo of snow-light, and back and forth from this luminous fillet over that high stony brow, black hair seems to tumble and gather.
Again, beheld in the dawn-light, when the mists are rising slowly and are waving to and fro around the giddy columns, hiding the cliffs behind them, these vast pinnacles seem to nod and to waver or to sway themselves backward and forward, all as silently as before. Soon, when the sun is risen and the mists from below fade away, the wind blows more mist from the mesa; you see clouds of it pour from the cliff edge, just behind and above these great towers, and shimmer against the bright sky; but as soon as these clouds pass the crag-nests they are lost in the sunlight around them—lost so fast, as yet others come on, that the stone giants seem to drink them.
Of such rocks, according to their variety and local surroundings, the Zunis relate many tales which are so
